Apex
by P Chill Now
Summary: Lurking in the shadows, soaring through the air. This is his story.
1. Hunting

Run.

Jump.

Land.

Run.

Jump.

Spin.

Hit wall.

Jump.

I smell something.

Land hard.

Roll.

Stop.

It doesn't smell cold, like a rival. It smells warm. I quiet-call, and my quiet-call comes back. Nothing is moving. I call before I jump over the smell. My call comes back. Two warm ones. With loud-sticks. I smell the fire-smell from their loud sticks. They must be killing Small-Stupid cold ones..

I'm hungry. Warm ones taste good. Better than cold ones, at least. But these warm ones have loud-sticks. I can't just pounce on one. If there was only one, maybe, but two, no. I've seen rivals pounce two with loud-sticks. They got killed. Always happens same way. Call, jump, loud-stick-noise, fall to ground cold. Not just regular cold, dead cold.

I'll wait. I'm in no hurry. Wait for help from other cold ones. Not a rival, though. Not that a rival would even dare be in my hunting grounds. Maybe a Can't-breathe-near, or a smells-good. Hopefully not a Big-Angry, but it would help. No shame in eating Big-Angry kills, because Big-Angries never eat.

Stop, stop, stop. Need to focus. No focus gets you killed. Must have focus. No focus when thinking about not-now. I think about not-now sometimes. Not often. Only just-was-not-now, though. Thinking about before-I-was-not-now hurts my head.

I did it again. Lost focus. I lost track of the warm ones. I smell for them. Too much fire-smell. Hurts my nose. I could call for them, but then they would know I was there. I never get kills when they know I'm there. Never.

That smell! Smells like a… Smells-Good! A Smells-Good must have come to help me hunt. What a helpful Smells-Good! Now I can smell the warm ones perfectly. They sure smell tasty, but I need to wait for lots of Small-Stupids to show up. They can't resist the smell of a warm-one after a Smells-Good has marked it. They will come for many long-jumps away just to get a chance to kill a warm one now.

A warm one is down. The Small-Stupids overwhelmed it. Now is my chance. Deep breath, call, jump. I high-jump instead of long-jump. High-jumps sometimes kill warm-ones on the spot. I start falling toward the warm one. This is the highest jump that I've made in a while. The jump-air pulls back my hood. I call again. The warm one sees me. It points its loud-stick at me. Too late. I hit the warm one. When it hits the ground, it makes a noise like a breaking stick. Still smells warm though. Slash, rip, tear, bite, I thrash at it until it smells cold.

Now I can eat. If it smells like a warm one, I eat it. Gag. I almost swallowed something made of smooth-rock. I am full quickly. I leave most of it to the Small-Stupids. I can smell the dead Smells-Good scattered around about a half-long-jump away. Poor Smells-Good. Only wanted to help me hunt.

I feel the warmth of the sun. Was I really out that long? I need to get back to my den quickly. Staying out of your den during sun-up is sure to get you killed. Many warm-ones come out at sun-up. I jump from high-not-ground to high-not- ground. My smell is getting stronger as I go. I finally reach the middle of my hunting grounds, where my smell is strongest. The sun is very warm now, I can hear the warm-one out and about. I found my den. It is well out of the way of where any warm one s may go.

It may be just a pile of food-scraps and warm-one-not-fur, but it is home. My mate is home from her hunting. She smells full and sleepy. She-rivals sometimes show up in my hunting grounds. If they bring me a good kill, I let them stay in my den. Good dens are hard to come by. She is my only mate right now. I have had others.

I would think more, but my mate is calling me to bed. I curl up next to her. Hunting was good, I am full, and she is lonely. Sleep comes quickly to me.

Author's Note

Hello ladies and germs. I was your host this evening, and I was happy to accommodate you. Let me get this across now, so that my ANs don't have to be as long ever again. This is my first story. Although it may seem poorly written, bad word choice, ect, consider the point of view. Is a hunter going to be verbose? I don't think so.

As far as reviews go, please review. Well-written reviews are love for an author's soul. However, I will never respond to a review in an AN. I may respond, if you write something particularly good, or if you fifty-Hitler-post me. Either way, I will commend your efforts… in a PM. I don't think I'm forgetting anything, so see you next time.


	2. Seeing in the Rain

Hunting has not been good lately. I haven't gotten a kill since that Smells-Good helped me take down two warm ones. My mate hasn't been getting kills either. Every time we come home, our bellies make loud noises like quiet-calls. The few warm ones that we've seen have been traveling in packs, and there have been no other cold ones to help us hunt. Even the Small-Stupids were scarce. It's as if all of my hunting grounds were empty.

I sit on top of a tree, waiting. I call out, and my call comes back. Nothing. Not even Small-Stupids walking around. I call out again. It comes back. Still nothing. I can't smell anything, other than me, my mate and my hunting grounds.

Movement! I heard it! I call out, and my call is answered with a call. Only my mate. I recognize her high call. Rivals have low calls. She must be out hunting still. It should be sun-up, but I can't feel the sun. I hear loud noises far away. They almost sound like loud-stick noises.

The noises happen again! So close and loud that I fall out of the tree, surprised. I smell a fire-smell, and the tree next to mine smells hot, like a booming loud-stick. Loud-sticks in the sky? I hope not.

I hear the noise again, but quieter and farther away. Then, something wet falls on my claw. I sniff it. Smells like water. I lick it off. Again it happens, on my hood. Again. And again. More and more, faster and faster until water is falling from the sky everywhere!

My reaction is to see how it can help me. Can I drink it, instead of the water I find in warm one dens? Not easily. I run around trying to catch it in my mouth. I'm not good at drinking sky-water, I figure.

Without noticing, I side-step a tree. Wait, what? I didn't call, or even quiet-call. How could I have known it was there? Then I realize, the sky-water is making noise! The noise is coming back to me like my calls do! I put this to use right away. I jump up into the tree that I was in earlier, and find a branch to sit in without having to make any noise. Wonderful! The tree is wet, so staying in the tree is tricky, but I manage.

My luck never stops! A lone warm one is running past my tree! It, slides, falls on its face, and scrambles back up onto its feet and rushes into a warm one den, not even a long-jump away.

I drop out of the tree without a sound. I stay close to the ground, and slowly crawl toward the den. I find where the warm one got in, but there is a wall instead of an opening. How do warm ones do that? First there is a wall, then a hole, and then a wall again. Very strange.

I catch myself losing focus again. I think too much. I slash at the wall until there is a hole big enough for me to slip through. I hope the warm one didn't hear me. I sniff around for it. It isn't far, just a few walls away. The sky-water is still helping, but I can't hear it as well as I could seems unfocused in shape. I crawl into where I smelled the warm one. It hears me.

It spins around, surprised. I get ready to pounce, but the warm one is quicker. It grabs its loud-stick and points it at me. There is a very loud noise. Pain tears through my shoulder. I give out a pained call, surprising the warm one so much that it falls backwards. I pounce.

I claw at it and claw at it until it stops making moving and making noise. I don't eat, yet. I need to take this kill back to my den, for my mate. She would do the same for me. I take some of the smaller pieces and put them in the pouches in my fur. I stuff bigger chunks inside my fur. I am heavier, but not so heavy that I can't jump. I crawl outside. The sky-water has stopped, to my disappointment, and the sun is out. I can smell warm ones starting to come out of their dens.

I jump back to my den as fast as I could, to find my mate sleeping. I give her a push, and she wakes up. I take out my kill, and we eat in silence. There is not much to eat, since I had to carry it back, but it is enough to make our bellies quiet. I can smell my mate's gratitude. She notices the wound in my shoulder, and nuzzles it. I push her away. She is to help me stay strong and full, not to nurture me. I will leave the wound alone.

I have been hit by loud-sticks before. I have the holes in my fur and flesh to prove it. It only hurts when you get the wound. After that, you don't feel it. New skin will grow over it eventually. For now, I am left with soreness in my shoulder and food in my belly. I am tired from the hunt, but I won't sleep yet. I lay back in my bed, picking bits of bone out of my teeth. My mate crawls up to me and nestles herself into my side. Very touchy, this one. All of my other mates only touched me when we played together. The feeling of touching in comfort is strange to me.

I feel her sleeping, so I decide to sleep as well. After having my first good meal in several sun-ups-and-downs, I am content. I let the sun shine on my face as I slowly drift asleep.

Author's Note

Hello again, my darlings. It may seem a little soon to be publishing a second chapter, but I was bored and anxious. So here it is. I hope you liked it. Be aware now, I most likely won't publish new chapters with any sort of regularity. Read and Review!


	3. Touching

I slept well. I wake up with a great weight on my chest. My mate slept well too. She rolled on top of me in her sleep. I push her off. I'm not used to her little touches, so big touches like that feel very strange. She wakes up soon as she lands on the bed. She starts to nuzzle into my side again. I push her away, harder.

She stands up, ready to leave and go hunting. I'm full of energy from my last meal. I don't want to hunt now. I want to play. I grab her arm to stop her. She quickly turns toward me. She has no hood, so the long fur on her head moves when she moves. She is close to me, so the fur touched my face when she turned. I nudge her with my shoulder. She pokes my chest with her claw.

The game starts. I get ready, call, and long-jump away. She calls and follows me. I jump to the ground and run into an empty warm one den. She can't use calls to follow me, now that I'm in a den. She follows my smell. I jump out of the den through a hole in the wall. I keep long-jumping away. As long as I am moving, she will never catch me.

That is why the game is hard to win. If you call, the prey is gone when the call comes back. If you smell, you only know where the prey was. Warm ones are easy to catch. They are slow and easy to follow.

I played the game with all of my other mates. She stops bringing in kills; I play the game with her. To make sure that she is still a good hunter. I am the prey in the game. If she can't catch me by sun-up, she is a bad hunter and must leave. If she catches me… I haven't been caught yet. If I was caught, she could stay. Some have come close, but I have never been caught.

What's that smell? It's her! She is close! I can't stop and call to find her or she will catch me. Must keep moving. This is what I get for not focusing. Stupid, stupid, stupid! She always has been the fastest mate that I've had. She smells very close now! She must be-

A great force hits my side while I am in mid-jump. I hit the hard ground with it on top. It smells strongly like my mate. She holds my arms to the ground, keeping her weight on me. I struggle but I can't get her off of me. She pounced me like I was a warm one. She has won.

I don't know what to do. I have never been unable to jump away before. Her long head-fur, hanging above me, brushes my face. She does not start to claw, like we do to pounced warm ones. She lets go of my arms and nuzzles my chest with her face. I do not push her off. She is a good hunter. She can touch me if she wants.

Author's Note

Just a quick chapter because I felt like updating. I'm getting a lot of hits, but not many reviews, so I stopped being stingy and turned on Anonymous Reviews. And by the way, rules 1 and 2 only apply during raids.


	4. Moving Day

Rivals! Rivals in my hunting grounds! So mad! So mad at rivals! Smells like… two rivals! Wait, more smells. Two rival-mates? Strange. Rival-mates never go with rivals when challenging. I start long- jumping to the closest-smelling rival and rival-mate. I stop ahead of him so he knows I'm there. He does not challenge-call. He keeps jumping away. Strange! Rival's smell wakes me up during sun-up and he doesn't challenge me? Mad at him! I mad-call at him. He doesn't stop. I hear him calling as he jumps. Normal call. Not mad-call or challenge-call or even give-up-call. The rival-mate keeps following him, like she didn't know I was there. Very strange.

The other rival and rival-mate are far away now. Out of my hunting grounds. He didn't challenge me either. Strange, strange, strange. My belly makes a loud noise like a quiet-call. I am very hungry. My last meal was many sun-ups-and-downs ago. Not long after my mate won the game. My mate? She will be upset about the rival! I must re-mark her!

I jump back to my den very fast. My mate smelled the rival too. She is sitting on the bed, smelling scared. Just like all mates do during a challenge. If I lose the challenge, she becomes the rival's mate, joining any other mates that the rival has. I have never had more than one mate. I have big hunting grounds, so I never challenge. Lots of mates are good when you have too-big hunting grounds.

I nip the side of her neck, marking her, like I did when she became my mate. That shows her that I won the challenge, and that she is still mine. I didn't win any challenge, but that doesn't matter. She smells happy about this and calls me to bed. The sun is up, and I am still sleepy. I lay down next to her and she wraps her arms around me. She started doing that after she won the game. It felt strange at first, but I didn't stop her. When she does it now, it helps me not feel how hungry I am. Hunger used to stop me from sleeping.

I decide to try something. I wrap my arms around her, like she does to me, and pull her on top of me. She smells very happy now. She moves so that her forehead is on mine. I feel her warm breath on my mouth and her head-fur on my face. She is much lighter from the bad hunting, so her weight on my chest doesn't bother me. I sleep before she does.

I woke up with something warm and wet lying on my mouth. My mate is still asleep, her mouth open and tongue on my face. I'm only getting a little used to some of her touches, so this is too much. I move to push her off of me, and my hand slides underneath her outer fur. I feel the cold flesh of her belly with my hand. She suddenly wakes up jumps off of me. She smells very surprised, but not angry or scared. She lies down again and nuzzles my neck. She never stops acting strangely.

I feel sun-up starting. We are so hungry, we slept longer than normal. We can't go much longer without food. Hunting won't help. There is no prey to hunt. I must get more prey. How can I get more prey? I challenge rivals for hunting grounds that have prey. Were the rivals in my hunting grounds looking for prey? They couldn't have been or they would have challenged me. My hunting grounds are empty, too. They must have known that.

I must find new hunting grounds. If my hunting grounds don't have prey, what grounds will? The rivals were going toward where the sun always is. Warm ones must like the sun; they are always out during sun-up. Maybe if I go toward where the sun always is, I will find more warm ones! I'll have to move during sun-up, so I can follow it. I also have to leave my hunting grounds behind. I will have to take my mate with me, like the rivals.

None of that bothers me. Anything for food at this point. Anything for food, and my mate. She has been my mate for longer than any of the others. She is a good hunter, and is the only reason I can sleep when I'm this hungry. I need her.

I jump to my feet. My mate gets up too, if only to hold onto my arm. I let out a challenge-call. No rivals are around to hear it, but my mate now knows what we're doing. I start to jump away, calling often so my mate can follow easily. I jump toward where the sun always is. We don't find any rivals or warm ones as we go, just a few Small-Stupids.

By sun-down, we are both very tired. We are weak from not eating. My mate is very weak, being smaller than me. I had to slow down a lot recently so she could keep up. We are far from my hunting grounds. It is strange to not smell myself all around, like in my hunting grounds.

It is time to sleep for now. I jump inside an empty warm one den, my mate barely following behind. I lay on the ground, resting on my side. My mate does the same, pressing her back against my belly. I wrap my arms around her like I did last time we slept. She falls asleep quickly. I fall asleep soon after her.

Author's Note

For those of you that are confused, the story starts out in Pennsylvania, the setting of the first game. Since it is in the northern hemisphere, the sun is somewhat in the southern sky. When Apex (my nickname for the protagonist) mentions, "where the sun always is", he means the cardinal direction of south.

Read and Review!


	5. Hurting

It is hard to wake up. I am on hard ground. Not my bed. Where is my bed? Why did I not sleep in it? I try to get up, but I fall down. I am too weak to stand. Pain tears through my belly from hunger. Now I remember. I left my hunting grounds to find new ones. I can't even stand, so I can't hunt. I can't hunt, so I can't eat. I can't eat, so I'll die. I want to be back in my hunting grounds. If I was, I could sleep in my soft bed while I waited to die.

My mate is gone. She must have known I was dying. Sleep gave her enough strength to get up and hunt. She is gone. She will never come back. If I don't die, she will still not come back. She is strong and I am weak. The strong live and the weak die. That is right.

I was strong. I was faster and stronger than any rival for too-many long-jumps around. I had the biggest hunting grounds. I was a good hunter. I killed weak warm ones. Strong warm ones got away.

Now I am weak. I will die from no food, or a strong warm one will kill me. That is right.

I have been not focusing for a very long time now. It doesn't matter. I will die soon. Focus will make my belly hurt more. I hurt all over. My arms and legs are sore. My belly burns like it was hit by a loud-stick. My feels like I am shaking. I want it to stop. It will only stop when I am dead. I will die soon, but not soon enough. I want the pain to stop now. I want to die now.

I know that I can do nothing to die faster. I can want to die faster, but wanting never does anything. Only doing does anything. I want what I can't do. This makes me feel mad. Mad at warm ones for leaving and making me die hungry. Mad at cold ones for not helping me hunt. Mad at rivals for taking my food. Mad at me for being weak.

I am not mad at my mate. I think about my mate, and I feel very strange. Like there is something being pulled inside my chest. I want her to be here. I can't make her be here. I want what I can't do, again. Knowing that she can't be here makes the tugging in my chest stronger. The tugging hurts now. Not hurt like my empty belly. Not hurt like getting hit by a loud-stick. This is a different kind of hurt. I have never felt this hurt before. I don't feel the normal hurt anymore. This new hurt is stronger than all of the normal hurts.

I feel very weak. I want this new hurt to stop. I want more to die faster. This new hurt is too much. This hurt makes me feel so strange. Not strange like being touched by my mate. This strange feeling is cold. My mate…

The new hurt keeps getting stronger, the more I think about my mate. I feel something wet going down my face. It slides down my cheek and along my ear and drops into my hood. It smells strange, like flesh-water, but more like water. I weakly touch my claw to my where-eyes-were. There is more of the face-water there. Strange. Maybe all of these new feelings and pains made my face wet? Maybe.

I smell something. Too far away to tell what it is, but I want it to be a warm one. So I can die faster. The smell gets closer. It smells like a warm one and a cold one. I feel a little happy. Maybe it is a warm one. The smell gets even closer. I know what it is now. A cold one carrying warm one flesh. The tugging in my chest starts again, and more face-water runs down my cheeks. The smell gets closer still. The cold one smells familiar. Closer now. The smell, it's of, my mate!

I feel happy now. Happier than I was when I thought it was a warm one to kill me. My mate will be here now! Wait, why did she leave? Oh. Right. Because I am dying. She is many long-jumps away. Just close enough to smell her. She is not coming back for me. She must have gotten a kill, and is bringing it to a rival, so she can be his mate.

The tugging pain gets stronger than ever before. Thinking about her being a rival-mate. I don't feel mad like I do when I think about rivals. I just feel the new hurt. She is still coming closer. Strange. She keeps getting closer or closer.

She stops just in front of the warm one den that I am in. Why is she here? There is nothing here but me, dying. She gets in through a hole in the wall and jumps over to me. She wraps her arms around me. She came back to me.

I suddenly feel very happy. I have never felt this happy before. I feel like something in my chest is warm and growing. She holds me tightly, and the warmth spreads through me. I have never felt warm before. Only cold. This warmth is not smell-warmth, like warm ones have. It feels strange, but I don't want it to stop.

She feels the face-water on my cheeks. She licks it off, slowly, like she was drinking water from the ground. My face is now more wet and sticky. It doesn't matter. She can do whatever she wants, as long as she is always with me. I don't want this warm feeling to stop. To not make it stop, I must be alive. I want to live.

I remember how hungry I am. I remember that I am dying. I must eat very soon if I don't want to die. I smell something other than my mate, who is now rubbing her face into my chest. I smell food. My mate brought food! I reach into her fur and pull out a chunk of food and eat it quickly. My mate smells of a strange feeling after I do this, and turns away from me take out the rest herself. When she is finished taking it out there is enough for a meal spread on the ground. She smells full and content, so I eat all of it. She doesn't mind.

I feel full and sleepy. My belly still hurts a little, but I am too sleepy to care. My mate lies next to me and pulls down my hood. As I fall asleep, she is licking the side of my face. She is strange, but I cannot live without her.

Author's Note

Yeah, sorry for not updating in a while. My internet was down, so I took a break from TF2 to write this. A bit of character development and as much conventional romance as this story is likely to see. I'll start working in L4D2 in the next few chapters.

Later.


	6. Feeling Warm

I give a victory-call. I have gotten a good kill. This warm one was large and slow. Easy to kill. Good to eat. My mate hears my victory-call, and starts toward me so she can eat. I don't wait, I start eating right away.

I am strong. I was not weak for long. Less than a sun-up-and-down. Then I was strong again. Smaller than I was before, but still strong. I have gotten bigger again since I became strong again. I feel stronger than normal. I can jump higher and farther. I kill faster.

We have been going toward the sun for many sun-ups-and-downs. We see and hunt more warm ones. Not enough to mark hunting grounds, but enough to not be hungry. We started hunting during sun-up. There are few warm ones out during sun-up and none during sun-down. We have been sleeping during sun-down.

My mate is next to me now, eating. I nudge her with my shoulder. She nudges back. We play this game while we eat. It usually ends with her on top of me licking my face. She has been touching me more and more in stranger and stranger ways since she became my mate. Licking my face is the strangest thing she has done. I don't care. It keeps my face cool.

I remember how warm I feel. Not warm like being with my mate. Stranger warm. The closer to the sun we get, the warmer sun-up feels. I feel so warm that it almost hurts. I feel my body dripping with water. My fur sometimes gets wet from it. It makes my fur smell very bad. My mate does not feel very warm. Her fur never gets wet and smells bad. She has less fur than me. More flesh.

I think about this. Less fur… not warm. I need less fur. I claw at my fur like I was clawing at a warm one. The fur comes off of my arms, my legs. Strange, hard fur comes off of my feet. Ow. I ripped my flesh tearing fur from my arm.

I suddenly feel cold. The cold feels… good. I like this cold. It is better than the sun-up warm. My mate is picking up the torn bits of fur and smelling them. Strange.

I give a quiet-call to her. It is almost sun-down. Time to find a warm one den to sleep in. I jump up to a not-ground. I start long-jumping away, my mate close behind. Jumping feels strange without the hard fur on my feet. I feel like I can land softer, and with less noise. I can even run with less noise. I will have to get my mate to tear off the hard fur on her feet. I think it will make us better hunters.

I smell something cold. Something big and cold. A very big cold one. Smells like a Big-Angry. My mate smells it too. It hears us. We are loud when we jump-call. It must not like the noises we make. It smells mad. Big-Angries always smell mad. This one smells like it is getting madder. Mad Big-Angries don't smell like mad rivals. Nothing else smells like a mad Big-Angry. I feel like I should stay away from it. Some smells make me feel certain ways. Big-Angry smells make me stay away. Smells-Good smells make me hungry. Can't-Breath-Near smells make me watch and wait.

I hear the Big-Angry. It is close. It is making loud Big-Angry calls and is running toward us. Not really toward us, it is on the ground and we are on a not-ground. It mad-calls at us and keeps running away. We keep going.

We soon find a good warm one den. We jump inside and find a spot to sleep. We have learned where good places to sleep are. We always sleep where there is a way out close by, but we are out of the way of warm ones. I found a spot. There are walls on all sides but one. The spot is small; I can't stretch without hitting something. There are sticks on the walls with warm-one furs hanging on them. There are hard-furs on the ground under the furs. I call to my mate, and she comes to me quickly.

I remember to help my mate out of her hard-fur. She is settling on the ground. I grab her foot. She smells surprised, but doesn't pull away. I tear off the hard-furs easily. My claws have been getting longer and sharper. It is easy to tear anything. She rubs her feet. She smells confused, but she will know why I did that when we start moving tomorrow.

I lay down and, as usual, she lies on top of me. I feel the flesh of or feet touching. She must feel it too, she smells happy. I feel sleepy. I fall asleep thinking that I am closer to getting my new hunting grounds.

Author's Note

Again, a quick update. I gotta say I'm rather disappointed with the number of reviews that I'm getting. It's been building steam, but I've got about one review for every 100 hits. C'mon guys, work for it! Is suppose it's my comeuppance for picking a low-traffic section to post in. If I want to be a review whore, I can post in the Naruto section or something. Anyway, later.


	7. Suprising Arrival

I wait while the warm ones kill the Small-Stupids that are around. There are three warm ones. Only one has a loud-stick. The other two are just hitting the Small-Stupids with sticks. Usually I never try to hunt more than one warm one. Now is different. My mate is waiting too. She is on the ground below me, hiding in a warm one den. I smell a Can't-Breath-Near on another not-ground, a few long-jumps away. Can't-Breath-Nears smell very bad.

The Can't-Breath-Near acts first. It reaches out and grabs one of the warm ones with his wet-arm, and starts pulling the warm one toward itself. I call and high-jump. I fall toward one of the warm ones and hit him. He is still moving, so I start to claw at him.

I hear a loud-stick noise, the death-call of a Can't-Breath-Near, and the warm one the Can't-Breath-Near was holding hit the ground. The smell of a dead Can't-Breath-Near is very strong.

I hear my mate call and jump onto the warm one with the loud-stick. She starts to claw the warm one. I can smell its flesh-water. The warm one I caught is dead. I do not smell any alive warm ones over the dead Can't-Breath-Near, so I start to eat.

I am suddenly shoved off of the warm one! What pushed me? I smell a living warm one very close to me. The warm one that the Can't-Breathe-Near caught is still alive! I couldn't smell it until it was close! I am dizzy from being shoved, and the warm one hits me up off the ground with its stick. That hurt a lot. The stick is made of smooth-rock. Before I hit the ground, I spin and land on my feet. I get ready to jump again, but my mate jumps over me and lands on the warm one!

The warm one still has its stick and is moving a lot, so my mate can't claw at it. I can do nothing but watch while my mate struggles with it. The smell of dead Can't-Breath-Near is almost gone from the air.

I hear a loud noise. My mate hears it too, but doesn't stop trying to claw the warm one. It sounds like a call, but no call I have ever heard sounds like that. The call was loud and long. It sounded mad like a Big-Angry call. Now I hear a different noise. The sound of feet pounding against the ground. I call out, to find out what it is. When my call comes back to me, I am confused. It is big like a Big-Angry, but a little smaller. It also only has one arm.

It is quickly getting closer. The sound of its feet is getting louder and louder. It smells very close now. It gives another call, like before, and charges into my mate, who is still on the warm-one. It grabs my mate with its big arm and keeps running, stomping the warm one to death as it went over it.

It keeps running for about a long-jump until it hits a wall, and starts pounding my mate against the wall. I am very mad. Nothing is allowed to hurt my mate. Not warm ones, not Small-Stupids, not Big-Arms.

I jump at it and land on its back. I dig my claws into the flesh of its back and hold onto it. Giving a pain-call, it drops my mate and starts thrashing with its arm, trying to knock me off. I hold on tightly with one hand, digging my claws in deeper, and I reach for its little head with my other hand. I grab its head and dig my claws in. It gives a louder pain-call and thrashes harder. I dig the claws on my feet into its back, and with both hands I claw at its face.

It thrashes a little more, but slowly stops and falls to the ground. I give a victory-call. Nothing is allowed to hurt my mate. My mate? I jump over to where she is at the wall. She smells like she is pain. She gives a low, quiet pain-call. I lick her face, like she does to me, and she smells happy now that I am with her. I jump away from her to one of the dead warm ones. I drag it back to her, and tear it into very little chunks. I feed her the chunks, like she did for me.

We need somewhere safe to sleep. I get up and call to my mate to follow me. She tries to get up, but gives a sharp pain-call and falls down. She needs to sleep if she is going to feel better. This is not a safe place to sleep. If a warm one finds us both asleep here, it will kill us.

I will stay awake and watch out for warm ones. And big cold ones. She is already asleep. I sit next to her and listen for any sounds. All is quiet, my mate's breathing the only sound. The sun is going down, and the cold sun-down is beginning.

Author's Note

Hello my pretties. I think this is the longest period without an update, so here you are. It's ironic that the reviews that I want to respond to are always anonymous, so I have to be a hypocrite and respond to it in my ANs.

I write the chapters in these short bursts, usually ending with sleep, because that's how the hunters' minds operate. Life for them is day-to-day survival. I hope that makes sense.

Oh and thanks for the reviews. Sorry if I sounded bitchy in the last AN, but I just wanted to express what I was thinking.

Stay cool.


	8. Dozing on the Job

I am very tired. I did not sleep at all. I have been awake since the sun last rose, and the sun is just rising again now. My mate is feeling better. She is still too weak to move, but she doesn't make pain-calls anymore. Warm ones are out during sun-up, and we are out in the open. We need to find somewhere to hide. My mate still can't move. We can't wait for her to feel better; we have to move very soon.

I know what to do. I stand up, walk over to her and pick her up in my arms. One arm is behind her shoulders, and the other is under her knees. She smells happy, as she always does when I touch her. Her head resting on my shoulder, she starts making long, low noises that I have never heard before. It feels like there is something making small, fast shaking movements inside her chest. Strange.

I start to walk toward the nearest warm one den that I can get into. I usually don't walk on only my feet. I can jump better and move more quietly on my hands and feet. I can hardly jump holding her, so I have to find an opening into a warm one den on the ground.

I see a hole in a wall that I can fit through while still carrying my mate. I duck down to fit into the hole, walk into the back of the den and set my mate down. She fell asleep while I was looking for a good den. My arms hurt a little. She is lighter than most she-rivals and I am stronger than most rivals, but I was carrying her for a while. The sun is high and very warm now.

I have never been more tired. I sit down next to where my mate is sleeping. I will rest for a little while, and then I will get back up. Just a little while…

…

Eeehk! What was that noise? That loud noise woke me up! Woke me up? Stupid me, I fell asleep! I look down at my mate. She shifted in her sleep to put her head in my lap. She is still asleep.

The noise again! This time it woke my mate up. She smells surprised and scared. I know that I have heard that nose before, but I don't remember where. I can't think well because I just woke up.

I smell something…

There the noise was again! Now I know what the noise is! It's loud-stick! I smell the loud-stick's fire-smell and I smell warm ones. I can't tell how many there are, but there are more than one. And they have loud sticks. They are very close. Just on the other side of the wall. Without thinking about it I start to move away from them. Then I remember my mate. She can't move, she can't get away from them. I can't leave her there. I need her. I won't be able to get away fast enough if I carry her.

I am mad at myself now. If I hadn't fallen asleep, I would have smelled the warm ones sooner, and we would have gotten away sooner. Stupid, stupid, stupid!

If I run, she will be killed, and I can't live without her. If I stay, we will both be killed, but at the same time.

She is the reason I am alive. I will stay.

I sit down next to her. I can do nothing but wait, and stay with her. She smells the warm ones, too. She smells very scared. I am scared, too.

I now smell something very strange. It is very close. I suddenly hear the warm ones outside making loud noises that I have heard before. Those are warm one pain-calls. The warm ones are being hunted. I very slowly move to the hole in the wall and make quiet-calls to find out what is happening. The warm ones are thrashing around wildly. They smell like they are being burned. The strange smell is strongest on the ground. It is a large puddle of something strange, and all of the warm ones are in it. I crawl over to the puddle to find out what is burning them. It must be fire. Fire is the only thing that can burn. But it doesn't feel or smell like fire. It smells… cold. Like me, and other cold ones. I feel it with my hand. I can pick it up, but it is runny, like water. It doesn't burn me. Only the warm ones are burned by it.

The warm ones have stopped moving. They are dead cold now. I smell a cold one close by. It is getting closer. It smells something like the cold-fire on the ground. It is now eating one of the warm ones. I call at it, it does not notice. It is tall and thin. Not as tall as Big-Angries, and not as thin as Can't-Breath-Nears, though.

I drag one of the dead warm ones over to my mate. The other cold one left after eating very little. It walked strangely and made strange noises. What a strange fire-making cold one that was.

My mate starts eating the warm one quickly. She doesn't need me to tear it into chunks this time. She seems very hungry, taking big bites and getting flesh-water everywhere. I eat some too, but not as much as my mate.

She wipes the flesh-water from her mouth with her arm and lies down. I lay down next to her like I usually do. She is still weak, but I will sleep for now. I am still tired. If any warm ones come, they have to get past the Strange-Fire.

Author's Note

Hello all. Sorry for not updating in a while. These new Pokémon games have kept me quite busy. I've got a basic idea of the rest of the plot flow to this story, and an outline of the ending. This story will probably have about 15 chapters when all is said and done. Sorry to break it to you, but I'm not one to keep my story alive past its lifespan of inspired plot. I like to keep things short and sweet.

Later scallies,

PCN


	9. On the Road Again

My mate is feeling much stronger now. Yesterday's meal and last night's rest has helped her get better. Not only is she able to walk now, she can jump too! Not as well as she normally can, but at least now we can keeping going toward the sun. I had woken up with her on top of me, as usual, and we had gotten ready to go for the day. The Strange-Fire did not kill any more warm ones, and the Small-Stupids had eaten the rest of the other warm one while we were asleep.

We are moving now. I have to move slower, because my mate is not as fast as she usually is, and she can't jump as far, either. If feels good to be moving again after going a sun-up-and-down without going anywhere. Warm ones are becoming more common, and so are cold ones. There are many strange cold ones that I have not seen before around here. We just passed another One-Arm not long ago. We are above it on the not-grounds, so it did nothing to us. Sky-water comes down more than usual here, too.

I hear movement below us! There is something making strange calls on the ground. I call at it, and the call comes back. It is small, and on its and hands and feet. It smells cold and strange. It almost smells like a rival, so I jump down near it. It hears my calls and turns toward me. It makes loud, common quiet-calls, and it sounds very strange. It suddenly jumps at me, but I roll out of the way. It gives aloud call, which sounds strange, but I know that it is a challenge-call. It is a rival! It is a strange-smelling, strange-sounding rival!

It jumps at me again, and I roll under its jump. It doesn't jump as far or as strong as a rival, but it doesn't call before it jumps, so I must keep quiet-calling to know where it is. The Strange-Rival jumps! I don't roll fast enough, and it is on my back. Instead of clawing my back, like a usual rival, the Strange-Rival wraps its legs around my belly, keeping it on me. It starts hitting me on the head while throwing itself around, making my lose my balance and fall onto my belly. I try standing up, but it keeps moving, and I fall down again. It hitting my head is starting to hurt, but not as much as a rival clawing me would.

I can't stand up. I will have to fight it on the ground. I try to reach behind myself to grab it, but it is too small; I can't reach it. I roll onto my back, and now it is underneath me, struggling to turn me back onto my belly. It can't move with me on top of it, and I always fall down when I stand up. I know what to do now. I roll onto my feet, with the Strange-Rival now beating on my head and try to knock me over, and I jump straight up into the air. The Strange-Rival seems surprised and stopped squirming and hitting me. Instead of trying to flip forward and land on my feet like I usually do, I flip backward so I can land on my back. I fall backward quickly, and land with the Strange-Rival between me and the ground. I did not get hurt by the fall, but the Strange-Rival has released its grip on me. I get up, and it is still on the ground. I smell its flesh-water, and it now smells dead-cold. I won the Strange-Rival's challenge.

I call to my mate, who was waiting up on the not-ground. She jumps down, and sits by me, smelling confused. I think she is confused about what happened. I give a victory-call, and she now smells happy. I don't think she even knew that I was challenged, but she is still happy. She licks my face, and we both jump back onto the not-ground to keep moving. Sun-up is only half over, so we still have time to keep going toward the sun.

Author's Note

Not even going to bother explaining my month-long absence. Life, drama, all that crap. Anyway, here's a filler chapter before the actual plot progresses. I'm glad that I'm done shoehorning in L4D2, at least.

PCN


	10. The Showdown

My mate started feeling better last sun-up. It has been two sun-ups-and-downs since I beat the Strange-Rival. My mate is running and jumping as fast and far as she usually does. This is good. When she feels good, we make can go farther toward the sun with every sun-up-and-down. She smells happier, too. A happy-smelling mate is a good-smelling mate, I have decided.

There have been enough warm ones around for this area to be my hunting grounds. There is a problem, though. These hunting grounds have already been claimed. These are a rival's hunting grounds. I have been moving to where the rival's smell is strongest. His smell is weak where I am, and he doesn't know that I am in his grounds yet. I will challenge him, and win these grounds for myself and my mate.

I stop jumping, and my mate stops, too. I go over to her and wrap my arms around her, like she does. She puts her arms around my middle, and gives quiet happy-calls. This is serious, though. I put my face close to her ear and make a quiet danger-call. She quickly lets go of me, and smells scared. She jumps down to the ground, and into a warm one den. There, she is now safe.

I jump for a while longer, deeper into the hunting grounds. The rival must be sleeping, if he doesn't know I'm here. I will have to wake him up.

Deep breath.

Challenge-call.

Deep breath.

Challenge-call.

My calls come back to me, and I call a few more times to know what the area is like. He will come to me soon. I called twice, just to make sure he heard me. Now I wait.

The sun is not as warm when he comes to me. I slept while waiting. He must not have heard me. He challenge-called back to me, and that woke me up. He is in front of me, moving low, and making quiet angry-calls. He moves around me, but always keeps his head toward me. I do the same, making challenge-calls and angry-calls. He moves to me slowly, still low. He hits his head against mine, not hard enough to hurt, but still hard. He backs away quickly. My challenge is accepted.

I pounce at him right away. When I get close, he knocks me away with his arm. I roll when land, back on my feet. He makes an angry call and pounces at me. I try to hit him, like he did to me, but he is too heavy. He lands on my chest, and starts to scratch me with his claws. I dig into his chest with my claws. He jumps away, and is to my side. I roll toward him, and pounce out of the roll. Not expecting this, I land on him. I dig my claws into his arms and hold them down, and I bite at his face. He gives a pain-call, and swings his legs up. This throws me off of him, and I roll so that I am on my feet, behind him. I pounce onto his back, and wrap my arms tightly around his chest. I remember the Strange-Rival. This is how the Strange-Rival almost beat me. This is how I will beat my rival. The rival tries to shake me off. I dig my claws into his chest, and my foot-claws into his legs. He trashes on the ground, trying harder to shake me off. I do not let go. As he tries to shake me off, me claws dig into him deeper. He tries jumping, but I weigh him down too much. He can hardly jump at all. The smell of his flesh-water is now strong. I find his neck, and I bit down hard into it. I rip and tear at the side of his neck. He stops thrashing quickly.

He smells dead-cold. I have beaten him. This is my territory now. I take a deep breath, and give the loudest victory-call that I can. My mate will be with me soon. I am sure that she heard that. I lick the flesh-water from my claws and wipe the flesh-water on my mouth onto my fur. I should be clean for when my mate is all over me. I grab the dead rival by his fur, and drag him off of the high-not-ground I am on. It makes a loud noise when it hits the ground. I almost don't feel my wounds, I am so happy.

Author's Note

So, yeah. I think why I haven't been updating is because of me getting my creative writing fix from a play-by-post roleplay site. Anyway, I was going to have this be a massively long post (by my standards), but I decided to split it in two. Don't worry; I'll have the next chapter up in likely under a week.

Anywho, this is going to be a lot shorter than I first envisioned. Probably four or five chapters after this. This chapter I've had planned for some time, and finally managed to get it in. Jamming the new infected into the story was kind of a chore. I don't know if I'll bother putting the witch in here.

Anyway, enough rambling from me. I need sleep. I was at the gym today, and a bird landed on my bicep while I was doing curls. It went "Awwk!" and flew away.

Later.


	11. Hail, Hail the Bloody Victor

Victory! I won the challenge over the rival! I have a home, and food. No more going toward the sun, and no more staying hungry. I have not felt this happy since I won my last hunting grounds from a rival. That was so long ago, it hurts my head to think about it. It was almost before I was, so long ago. I didn't have a mate then.

I smell my mate. She is getting closer to me quickly. Being with her will make me happier. I want to touch her and hold her and smell her. For the last few sun-ups-and-downs it has been hard to stay away from her for long. Going hunting alone leaves me with a little strange pain in my chest. When we go hunting together, we almost always kill a warm one.

My mate pounces me as soon as she is close enough. I am very surprised by this and I almost claw her, but I smell her and I am calmed. She starts to lick my face like she usually does, but she makes sure to lick my scratches. She smells happy, but also scared. I must have been scared of me losing the challenge. The only way to lose a challenge is to be killed. I lick her back, and hold her close to me. She makes quiet happy-calls into my chest and smells less scared. I am happy when she is happy.

I want to stay here with her longer, but I know that I have to do more things to make these my hunting grounds. I roll my mate off of me, and get onto my feet. I call and long jump to where the dead rival's smell is stronger. I keep jumping to where the smell is strongest, and my mate follows me. It takes a while before I find where the smell is strongest, and the sun is almost all the way down when I get there. This was the rival's den. Like the den I had, it is a pile of bones and warm one not-fur. It was hard to get to, which is good. If it is hard for me to get to, it will be even harder for warm ones to get to. Now that I know where it is, it will be easier for me to find it. I must now make the den mine.

I grab parts of the den and rip them apart, and rub them on myself. Flesh-water and bad-smell-water from my body gets on the not-fur, and makes it wet. I do this more, and I eventually have to cut myself with my claws so I have more flesh-water. The den starts to smell very bad, but that is because it smells like me and the dead rival. Now I take parts of the den that smell like the dead rival, and throw them to the ground. The den will start to smell like me soon. When I sleep in the den, it will smell like me more. In a few sun-ups-and-downs this will be the place where my smell is strongest.

My den is marked with my smell, and the wind will carry the smell to the rest of the hunting grounds. These hunting grounds are large, so I have to do more to mark them as mine. I jump out of the den, but my mate does not follow me. She stayed in the den. Must be sleepy. Marking the rest of the territory will take a while, so it is good that she sleeps. I long jump many times until I am where there is almost no smell in the wind. Not of me, not of the dead rival. The only things I smell are a few Small-Stupids on the ground. I start to make my mouth fill with spit-water, until it starts to spill out. I spit all of it underneath me, and rub it into the not-ground. I rub some of my flesh-water into it, too. This is a ground-mark. It makes a strong smell to show where my hunting grounds are. I long-jump a few times more, but I stay where there is the same amount of smell in the wind. I make another ground -mark. Jump away again. I keep doing this until I smell a ground-mark that I made before. The sun will be going up soon, and I am very tired and hungry.

I jump toward my smell and into my hunting grounds. My den smells like me and I can smell my mate there, too. There is a new smell in the air. This is not the smell of me, my mate, or the dead rival. The smell is very weak, and it is coming from inside a warm one den that is close. I jump down to the ground and toward the smell. I quickly find the den where the smell is coming from, and I jump through a large hole in the wall. I move slowly and low through the den, trying to find what is making the smell. It is close, and I can almost tell what it is. I can tell that it is a cold one, and a very scared one. The smell is right next to me! It is a she-rival! No, not a she-rival. It is a rival-mate. The rival-mate is sitting right next to me. I quiet-call, and I can tell that she is shaking and very scared. Scared of me. She smells like the dead rival. She was his mate. She is scared because she heard my victory-call. She knows her mate is dead. No, her mate is not dead. I am her mate now. I won the hunting grounds and her. I move slowly toward her, and she smells more scared. She is very small, smaller than the Strange-Rival. I get very close, and gently bite her neck. She has been marked. I have a new home and two mates.

Author's Note

A challenger appears!

That's almost what I named this chapter. Be glad I didn't.

Anyway, plot development and eleventh-hour characters comin' at you, WHOA! I going to stop making estimations of when I'm going to write up new chapters, juts to be kind to you fair people. Better to be left in the dark then disappointed, I guess.

I am planning on starting a new L4D story, but not for a little while. Mind you, this will mean I have two stories on my hands to not update.

Typos because I'm lazy,

PCN


	12. First Impressions

My new mate and I sit next to each other for a while without moving. She smells very scared and I don't want to scare her more. Getting a new mate is usually very scary for rival-mates. My first mate I got with my first hunting grounds. She was killed by a Big-Angry. I didn't care. She was not a good hunter. I hope this mate is a good hunter, like my mate who is in my den right now.

I quiet-call very slowly. I don't want to surprise her. I can tell that she is very small. She is smaller than any rival or she-rival that I have ever known. I doubt she will be a good hunter. Even if she isn't a good hunter, she is now my mate, and I have to protect her. I get on my feet quietly and call for her to follow me. The little one gets up slowly and calls back, very quietly. Her call is very high and soft, even higher than my den mate. I jump out of the warm one den and up onto the not-ground above it. She follows me, but slowly. I call to her again and start to jump to my den. She is so small that her jumps are small, and she is much slower than me. I have to wait for her or she will not be able to follow me. This makes me a little angry. She cannot be a good hunter if she is this slow. If she isn't a good hunter, we may have to hunt for her. It will be like when my den mate was hurt and couldn't hunt, but the little one will never be a better hunter.

We eventually make it to my den. I am the most sleepy I have been in a few sun-ups-and-downs. My den mate is asleep, and does not wake up when we arrive. The little one also seems sleepy. I lay on my bed next to my den mate, one arm holding her. The little one curls up near the bed, but not on it. Before I can think about why she did that, I am asleep.

I wake up before either of my mates. The sun is almost gone from the sky, and I hear a Big-Arm making its strange calls somewhere nearby. Hearing the Big-Arm makes me a little scared and a little mad, but I know that it can't get to me or either of my mates up here. I roll out of bed and pull down some fur that has rolled up in my sleep. My den mate did not roll onto me in her sleep, which is strange. I quiet-call at her, and I now know why. She rolled onto the little one in her sleep instead of me. The little one is still asleep, even through my den mate is on top of her. Strange that she can sleep through that, when I almost can't. My mate is making noises like she will wake up soon. I sit next to them because I want to be there when my den mate knows of the little one.

My den mate is waking up now, I can tell. I quiet-call so I know what is happening. She starts to rub and lick the little one's face, like she does to me when we wake up. She must think she is on me. The little one wakes up right away. She gives a surprised-call, and rolls away quickly. That is the fastest she has moved yet. The little one gets behind me for protection. I am confused, but I now remember that my mate is strange in how she touches. No other mate I have had acts like her. My den mates smells very confused. I hear her take a deep smell of the wind, and rushes over to me. She grabs me by the shoulders and pulls me away from the little one. I forget how strong she can be sometimes. She smells very scared, like the little one was before I marked her. I push her off of me and nip the side of her neck, like I was marking her. I go over to the little one and nip her, too. My den mate smells less scared now. She must understand that I have another mate now. The little one still smells scared.

My den mate goes over to the little one, and sits next to her. She smells happy, strongly. Oh, I know. She's trying to calm the little one down with her smell. It works on me, so maybe it will work on her. I go over to them and sit next to my den mate. I put my head on her shoulder and breathe in her smell, just because I like it. Me toughing her seems to make the smell stronger. The smell now seems mixed with… something else from my mate. I can't tell what it is, but it smells a little happy and a little mad. Strange smells from my strange mate. It doesn't surprise me too much. Whatever it is, I like the new smell.

The little one smells less scared now, but I can hardly smell her over my mate. The little one is rubbing against my den mate like I am now. Two strange mates at once? I have a hard time living with one. My thoughts are broken by a sound form my den mate's belly. It sounds like a strange quiet-call. I know what it means, as it happens to me sometimes. She is hungry, and it is time to go hunting. I am hungry, too. The little one heard the sound as well and smell surprised. My den mate just smells hungry now. The strong happy smell is gone, and she is ready to go hunting. I call to both of them and jump out over the not-ground, eager for the hunt.

Author's Note

Little filler chapter, just because I'm bored. Updates may become more frequent, as I'm trying to finish the story, but don't get your hopes up.

A little tibit from (my) story canon to keep you pleased. One of the symptoms of mutation through infection is impotence. None of the infected are capable of fathering/bearing a child. It's also very unlikely that they could figure out how "it" is done, thus the T rating of this story.

Fuckin photoshop, how does it work?

PCN


	13. Dig Two Graves

Hungry.

I am very hungry.

I have been very active the last few sun-ups-and-downs. I have not gone hunting in a while.

My den mate and the little one are with me. We have to go slow so the little one can keep up. My mate smells a little mad. She is even faster than me, so going this slow must be worse for her. Thinking about it, maybe I should have left the little one at our den. The little one isn't very fast or strong so she probably isn't a good hunter. I do not know if her claws are sharp or her call is strong, so maybe she is a good hunter. I don't know. We will know soon.

Jump.

Call.

Land.

Run.

Call.

Jump.

I smell a warm one that is close. Only one. No fire-smell in the wind, so there it doesn't have a loud-stick. For one of us, this would be easy. For two, even easier. For… uh… one more than two, this is not enough to feed everyone. The little one probably eats less. Even so, I won't eat as much so there will still be some for her. The warm one is very close now. We are on the not-ground above it. It's getting close, coming toward us. What is it doing? Oh, there is a big thing made of smooth-rock near us. I can tell because smooth-rock smells strange. It reminds me of water that we were near when we were going toward the sun. There was a lot of it, and it smelled a little like flesh-water.

The warm one is doing something to the thing made of smooth-rock. Why is- RAAAWR! My head! Noise so loud it hurts! I grab my head in pain and squirm on the not-ground. I hear my den mate and the little one doing something similar. I hope the warm one didn't hear our pain-calls. Oh… oh… the noise is stopping… ugh… I can't tell where things are. Everything is… fuzzy. I feel strange. The ground is moving under me, I think. I fell, or I think I did. I'm not sure of anything right now. What made that awful noise? It was probably the thing made of smooth-rock. The warm one made the smooth-rock make the noise. The noise hurt me and my mates. The warm one hurt me and my mates. The warm one hurt my mates. It hurt my mates.

I am mad now. I want to kill the warm one.

Wait, what's that noise? Oh… I know that noise. I hear the mad-calls of lots of Small-Stupids far away. The noise made the Small-Stupids mad, too. They will be here soon. Small-Stupids may be mostly slow, but they are very fast when they are mad. When they get here, they will kill the warm one. I don't want that. I will feel better if I am the one to kill the warm one. My my den mate and the little one are still not feeling good, but I feel better now. I get onto my feet and go onto the edge of the not-ground. I call and jump onto the back of the warm-one. It hits the ground hard with me on top, and I hack at it with my claws. The thing made of smooth-rock is making strange noises, but it is quieter than before. It is still loud, but I can stand it. It also makes strange smells, kind of like fire-smell. The noise and smell were apparently quite strong, as I didn't notice my den mate and the little starting to eat the warm one until one of them touched my hand. I stop trying to kill the already dead warm one and start to eat, too. I don't feel less angry about it hurting my mates. Strange, I thought I would.

That strange smooth-rock thing really makes me unaware. The Small-Stupids are all around us, and I didn't notice until they were right in front of us. They smell mad, but the warm one is dead and eaten by us, so they have nothing to kill. I feel a few go past me as they fight each other. There are so many, I can barely move around. The smooth-rock thing is quieting down now. It doesn't make very much noise or smell at all. Now I can smell where my mates are. They're close, a little ways in front of me but behind a few Small-Stupids. I call to them, but they can't hear me over the calls of the mad-calls of the Small-Stupids.

I hear something loud getting closer. I have heard that noise before, but I can't think of when or where. I know that it is an important noise to know. It sounds like a call, but very deep and loud. A very mad call, it must be. Whatever it is, it is getting closer. I can smell it now. It smells mad. And it smells big.

No. No, no, no. A Big-Angry is coming. We have to get out of here. Big-Angries kill everything. Warm ones or cold ones, it doesn't care. I call to my mates, but they can't hear me still. They might be asleep. How can they sleep when there is a Big-Angry coming at us? The Big-Angry is very quickly getting closer. I push through the Small-Stupids to get to them. They are asleep and smell full, so I try to shake them awake and pull them away. There are two of them, so I can't carry both. I can't leave them behind. The Big-Angry is so close, the ground is shaking. It will kill my mates. No. I won't let it. The Big-Angry won't take my mates from me. Not again.

Deep breath.

Challenge-call.

Jump.

Pounce.

Author's Note

Ooh, cliffhanger! Aren't I a bastard?

Again, apologies for how immensely long this took. I've been extraordinarily busy. Between my studies, my apprenticeship, and all of the fall games out (New Vegas, anyone?) there's been little time for me to hop on the net and write something up.

Anyway, I'm winding things down (or is it up?) in the story. I'll be posting this, and then trying to pump out the final chapters while I have some creative juice flowing. I've been looking forward for the final chapter since day one, but for reasons other than the story drawing to a close. I'll be trying something quite creative with the next chapter, and it may be difficult to understand, but bear with me, please.

Big iron on my hip,

PCN


	14. Dysfunction

Huh? What's happening? Someone is shaking me. Why wake me up? I was having a very good sleep. All I remember before sleeping was eating with my new Sis and Poppa. Poppa is a real good fixer. He fixed that meal right up, he did. I'm not surprised; he's much bigger than me. So is Sis. It makes me feel kind of bad, knowing that they have to slow down so I can keep up when we go looking for fixings. This was my first hike with my new Poppa and Sis. I never had a Sis before. My last Poppa had a Sis before me. I know because I found where she took a blood-sleep. You never get up from a blood-sleep, no you don't.

Oh, it's Poppa shaking me. Why does he want me to wake up? I feel the ground shaking under me. Something loud is coming toward us. Poppa smells scared. Don't be scared, Poppa. I want to tell him that. I can't. Poppa made a loud noise that I know I've heard before. I heard the noise a lot right before he became my new Poppa. Poppa is jumping at something. I don't know what's happening without making noise, so I scream and turn to where Poppa jumped to. Whoa! What is that? I've never knew of one of those before! It's so big! Poppa jumped onto it. He's holding onto the Big-Thing real right. That Big-Thing sure smells mad. Poppa is hitting it, I'm pretty sure. If he's hitting it, it must be bad and deserve it. Get it Poppa!

It's not coming at me and Sis anymore. Sis is just waking up now. The Big-Thing is going away from us, and it looks like it's trying to pull Poppa off with it big arms. Sis doesn't seem to know where she is. She's moving her head all around and smelling the air. She smells very scared now. She must know what's happening.

I check what Poppa and the Big-Thing are doing. They're farther away from us now. Poppa keeps hitting it, but it's not slowing the Big-Thing down none. Oh! The Big-Thing got a hold of Poppa! It's swinging Poppa around on its arm. Poppa's trying to hold on, but it's too strong, I can tell. Oh no, it threw Poppa really far. He hit a wall, and he's not moving. I smell Poppa's blood. Oh… Poppa…

Wait, what is Sis doing? She… she smells really angry! Now she's going really fast toward the Big-Thing. I follow behind her, but she gets far ahead of me because she's so much faster. I jump up to the flat-top of a four-wall and follow her from there. Now I can tell what's happening better. Sis is right behind the Big-Thing, but she's keeping a little ways away from it. She's going around behind it in circles. The Big-Thing is just beating on Poppa with its big arms. What an awful Big-Thing that is! Sis jumped onto the Big-Thing's back like Poppa! I hope she doesn't get pulled off again. She's crawling all over it, and the Big-Thing isn't fast enough to grab her. She'll stop and swipe at one spot on the Big-Thing now and again, but I can't tell what she's hitting. I'm too far, so I'll move in closer. I jump a few times to get closer to where Sis and the Big-Thing are fighting, and now I know what Sis is hitting. The Big-Thing has a tiny head that she keeps hitting and biting. I smell a lot more blood in the air, and the Big-Thing I starting to slow down. Oh! The Big-Thing stumbled into a four-wall and crashed through the wall. I can't tell at all what's happening now. I can only hear the loud noises the Big-Thing makes and smell its blood. Alright, they crashed back out of the four-wall.

The Big-Thing fell over! I don't know where Sis is, though. I smell her near the Big-Thing, but she isn't there, as far as I can tell. The dead Big-Thing is moving a little. Up and down, just a tiny bit. It doesn't look like it could hurt me, so I'll go see what it's doing. I jump down to the ground and run over to the big, bloody Big-Thing. I hear Sis real close, but I don't know where. The Big-Thing moved again, and I hear Sis from right near it. But where is she? Oh, she was on its back when it fell. It's on top of her. I feel stupid now. Oh, she can't lift it on her own. I'm not as strong as Poppa, but I'll help. I get a real tight grip on the Big-Thing and lift it up as high as I can. Sis slips out from under it and we both drop it. It hits the ground again with a loud noise. Sis smells odd now, apart from the smell of blood. She smells almost tired, but angry too. She slowly comes toward me and rubs her face on mine. Odd how much she likes to touch. She left some blood on my face, and something… else. It's like water, but it is hot to drink, like blood. Sis climbs back on top of the Big-Thing, puts her head back and gives a long, loud howl. It sounds like what I heard after Poppa beat my old Poppa. It sounds different, though. It sounds tired, like how Sis smells.

Sis comes back over to me and knocks me down with her shoulder. I know that I should stay put now. Sis runs over to where Poppa is. She is over there for a little while. She comes back as quickly as she left. She nudges me, and I know to follow her. Where is Poppa? Sis jumps away, and waits for me to follow her. I jump after her. Maybe Poppa is out hiking and looking for fixings. Yes, that's what he's doing, I'm sure. All this excitement has made me hungry. Hungry and tired. I am glad to have a new home and a new family.

Author's Note

Writing that chapter damn-near killed me. I expected easy and interesting because I was doing something different, but it ended up being a chore. If you're utterly confused, this was in the POV of the "little one". Don't worry; next chapter will restore POV to our infected hero, Apex. I'm sorry if the battle was anti-climactic. I'm not good at doing fight scenes, especially in this style. The rival battle should have prepared you for disappointment on this level. D'oh well. Next chapter happens to be the last. I'm dead tired at the moment so don't expect the chapter our for some time. You all know how my time-tables are. Ugh.

Anywho, see youse guys later,

PCN


	15. Remember

I don't feel anything. No, I feel something. I feel cold. I know that I am a cold one and that I smell cold, but I never felt cold before. No, that's not true. When my den mate and I were going toward the sun, when we would go to sleep at sun-down the wind would blow over us. I felt it on my skin, and it was like something was being taken from me. I would rub up against my mate and she would give back whatever it was. Warmth. She gave me warmth. She gave me warmth on my skin and inside me.

But I don't feel warmth. I don't feel strength or pain or anything. Just cold. I remember when there was no food, and I was weak. When I was going to die. I felt pain in my belly from no food. I smell my own flesh-water on the wind, and the flesh-water of the Big-Angry. I should feel pain, but I don't. Just the cold. Remembering doesn't hurt now. The cold is in my thoughts too. It's in my… _mind_.

What? What does that mean, _mind_? I… I know what it means. My mind is where all of my thoughts and feelings and… _memories_ are. Where are these strange words coming from? I never knew them. Or, I think I never knew them… I try to remember if I knew them before. I check my _memories_. No, I don't think I knew what they meant. Maybe, I knew them before I was. It doesn't hurt my _mind_ to think of those _memories_. No, I don't remember anything from before I was. It just comes to me when I think about it. It's like I'm filling holes in my _mind_. Missing pieces in a _puzzle_. There it is again. I know what a puzzle is. Something that is confusing, or not whole. Not _complete_. My _mind_ is a _puzzle_. Things are missing from my _mind_. I never knew anything was missing until now. Maybe it was the pain in my mind, filling those holes. The pain kept me from knowing that I was _incomplete_.

I hear a lot of noise coming from a while away. It sounds like fighting, but something is wrong with how I hear it. I don't know what is going on from the noise. Noise used to make a _picture_ in my _mind_. There is no _picture_ now. Only cold. I know what the sounds are, though. It's the Big-Angry. The Big-Angry must be killing my mates. It must be. I couldn't protect them, and now they are dying. I feel pain now, inside me. Pain like when I thought my mate left me. I feel _sadness_. It's a _dark_, hurting feeling deep inside me. Inside my _heart_. _Sadness_ makes my _heart _hurt, above the cold.

I don't feel mad. Not at myself or the Big-Angry. I think it's because of the cold, but I feel like something else is keeping me from being mad. I feel like there was no way to beat the Big-Angry. I could never have been strong enough to beat it. It was meant to beat me. It was _destined_ to beat me. Now this is strange. I know this new word, but I don't know entirely what it means. I almost know what it means; something that will happen no matter what. But I don't feel like I understand it entirely. Maybe I never did. Maybe no one does.

I smell strong flesh-water in the wind. That's not the right word; I remember what it's called now. I smell _blood_ in the wind. Big-Angry _blood_. How strange, I don't smell the _blood_ of my mates. Hmm, something that smells like the _blood_ is coming closer to me, very fast. I can't tell what it is because there are no _pictures_ in my _mind_ anymore. It is so close to me, I can feel its warmth. I can just… just smell it over the _blood_. It is… my mate? But… but she is dead. The Big-Angry killed her. How… how is she not dead? Did she kill the Big-Angry. She… yes she did. I smell the Big-Angry, and it is dead cold. I feel my mate get very close to me. She is rubbing her nose against mine. She is rubbing her cheek against mine. Something wet comes off of her face onto mine, and it is not the Big-Angry's _blood_. It rolls into my mouth, and I know that taste. It is face-water. _Tears_. She is _crying_ from s_adness_. Why are you _sad_, my mate? Why? I want to make her feel happy again. I want to get up and lick the tears from her face, because she needs me. I don't want her to be sad because I am dying.

Yes, I am dying, aren't I? I can't move, and I keep feeling colder. I am not sad about this. Things live and die all the time. It is how it has always been since before I was. Death is a part of life. It is _destiny_. I once thought that I could not live without my mate. I will never know if that is true, but I think that it is not. I could live on without her, and she will have to. She will live without me because she is strong. She has always been strong. Even when her body was weak from being hunger or from being by the One-Arm, her _mind_ stayed strong. She must be strong for the little one.

My mate is still here. Go. Go to the little one. I can't make any noise, so she doesn't know that I want her to leave. She can't stay here and watch me die. I want her to remember me for living strong, not for dying weak. She is moving her face very close, her nose and mouth even with mine. Slowly, she moves toward me and presses her warm lips up against my cold ones. This does not last long, and she runs away as soon as she stops touching me. Good, go. Live and be strong. Hunt well and always have a full belly. Find a new mate, one who will protect you better than I have.

The warmth from her lips stays on mine for long after she is gone. It slowly spreads across my face, down my neck, across my body and deep inside me. The warmth pushes away the cold and the pain in my _heart_ and _mind_. I feel almost happy now. She is safe and that is all that matters to me. The warmth in my _heart _feels like it is growing and will burst from my chest. I finally know what to call this warmth that only she could bring me. _Love_. It was _love_ that kept me from dying when we were hungry. It was _love_ that kept me warm on those cold _nights_ spent without a den.

The warmth is still keeping me from being cold, but I feel it less and less. It's like it's shrinking inside of me, leaving this empty space between my skin and it. There are _lights_ behind my eyes. I know that I do not have eyes, and that I haven't seen _light_ since before I was, but I remember what it is. The lights are like _candles_ with flames moving, _dancing_. Yes, I remember dancing. Two people, moving their bodies together in _harmony_. I would like to have _danced_ with her. She would not have known how, but I could have shown her, and she would have liked it. Yes she would have liked it a lot. Touching, movement, and maybe _love_. She _loved_ me, I am sure of it. I was as warm to her as she was to me. That must have been why she always touched me. I kept her from feeling the cold in her _heart_.

My eyes are filled with light. I feel wind rushing past my ears. I am running very fast toward something. I am running toward her… toward my…

My…

My love.

Author's Note

And so ends the tragic tale of these star-cross'd infected lovers. I would like to thank all of you for sticking with me during this nearly two-year effort, your reviews and your support. Even at this final hour, any and all reviews are appreciated. I may be starting a new story sometime soon, but now I am more aware of what an undertaking it is at this point. Anyway, if you want to suggest an idea, offer collaboration or just shoot the breeze, fire me a message. Unless I don't speak your language, I'm more than likely to offer some kind of feedback. In any case, I'll probably be doing something crazy soon, so don't stray too far.

I apologise for nothing,

P Chill Now


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